Reading Room Notes

Several years ago, I made a trip to Hay-on-Wye. It was the town of my book-loving dreams, and I brought back a tidy pile of volumes. I’m certainly not the first person to wax lyrical about second-hand books, but I’ve always had a weakness for them, something about the smell and the fragility appeals to me. You’re touching history when you touch them, smelling the passage of time as you smell them. And it’s even better when you find an unexpected bit of ephemera inside – a postcard, a receipt, a bit of someone else’s reading experience.

On this trip to Hay I came home with a very special book. I was then in the throes of my PhD research, part of which explored the networks of British archaeologists working in Mandate Palestine. I was interested in the relationships between archaeologists and political figures who could and did play a critical (though now often invisible) role in facilitating and supporting archaeology. Ronald Storrs was one of these officials, serving as Military and then Civil Governor of Jerusalem from 1917 to 1926. The book was Ronald Storrs’ autobiography, Orientations, in its so-called “Definitive Edition”. Pasted carefully on the reverse of the title page was a letter from Storrs to an unknown recipient and Storrs’ book-plate on the page opposite.

The dust cover has seen better days, but the central image contains symbols relating to the three main faiths for which Jerusalem is a holy city: the crosses are enclosed by a star of David with the superimposed crescent on the left. Photo A.Thornton, 2015.

Detail from Storrs' signed letter to the anonymous recipient of his memoir. This particular book is clearly one of many presentation copies. Photo: A. Thornton, 2015.

Storrs is an intriguing individual – a complex figure in the history of Mandate Palestine and the history of the city of Jerusalem during this period.* Interestingly, his connections to archaeology pre-date his sojourn in Palestine. Before the First World War he was an official in the Egyptian Government based in Cairo, and for a time he shared a flat with the archaeologist Howard Carter and the architect Ernest Richmond (later to become Director of Antiquities in Palestine). While Storrs, Richmond and Carter lived together a fracas between French and Belgian tourists and tomb guards at Saqqara’s Serapeum, under Carter’s jurisdiction, resulted ultimately in Carter’s resignation from the Antiquities Inspectorate.

In Orientations, Storrs crafts a fascinating glimpse into English officialdom the Middle East before, during and after the First World War. His personality and obvious sense of self-worth stream steadily through his prose. His preface is particularly telling – warning readers that the majority of his personal papers were lost in a fire in 1931**, he gets around this hole in his own archive by pointing out that fortunately there were alternate materials he could draw on to chart his life journey. The text that follows is a curious mix of narrative and quotations from home correspondence, press clippings, telegrams, government papers, even personal recollections translated by Storrs from Arabic.

During wartime, Storrs was associated with the Arab Bureau; amongst its staff were the archaeologists T. E. Lawrence and D. G. Hogarth. A good friend to the legendary Lawrence, Storrs played his own role in the Arab Revolt. When he became Military Governor of Jerusalem in 1917, he was one among a number of British officials (and archaeologists) who shifted literally and figuratively from an Egyptian context to a Palestinian one.

Storrs is most associated with the planning and restoration of Jerusalem’s Old City, enacting strict legislation to ‘preserve’ the historic heart of what he called “a City of invincible and unutterable attraction” to a very particular vision. The Pro-Jerusalem Society, founded on Storrs’ instigation, has been the subject of recent scholarship on the modern history of the city. Although when I went to Jerusalem I was at the beginning of my research and unaware of Storrs and the PJS’s impact on the Old City, I think much of their vision still remains relevant in preservation initiatives today.

The Damascus gate is one of many gates in the Old City walls. Photo: A. Thornton, 2008.

Storrs’ memoir writing reflects a more general trend; many other British officials who held positions in the Middle East during this period later reflected on their lives abroad. They are intricate portraits of people, landscapes, scenes and events highlighting the attitudes, lifestyle, and a social and political calendar that has vanished but continues to be debated, discussed and portrayed on-screen. Although set not in the Middle East but British India, Channel 4’s drama “Indian Summers” is the most recent example of this portrayal.

* Tel Aviv’s Eretz Israel Museum held an exhibition about Storrs, his work in Jerusalem and his relationship to the various communities of the city. “The First Governor” was open from October 2010 to August 2011. A review of the exhibition can be found here.

** This fire occurred while Storrs was Governor of Cyprus; he discusses the context of the fire further in Orientations.

Your mails are always so interesting and information dense -- for a poet. I've been stewing for a year about the consequences of isis and how long it will be though it covers in a blink so much archaeological time. Stuff that was too delicate to disturb will appear, but the lost stuff -- what can anyone feel but horified. Bob

Reply

Linda Heywood

1/5/2015 05:49:11 am

Marvelous. The language soars!

Reply

Richard Lightbown

19/7/2016 07:18:43 pm

I don't like Storrs. I suspect it was he that made the gaffs in the Husseyn/McMahon correspondence, such as the suggestion that Christian residents of Syria were not Arabs. Husseyn was incredulous. (Unlike Lawrence, and even Kitchener, Storrs was not fluent in Arabic.)

Storrs also totally misread Zionism. Having supported it unequivocally while Governor he was horrified at the result in 1948.

An archetypical chinless wonder who tried to bring about detente through chess (as though the fellahin would turn up to his chess club in their thousands) he was a gift to the Zionists and an unmitigated disaster to the indigenous population.